


Infinite

by plutosrose



Series: Stucky Bingo 2020 [20]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Infinity Stones, M/M, Mention of Sam/Steve Hookup, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Steve Rogers's Sadness Errands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutosrose/pseuds/plutosrose
Summary: He had expected the other Steve to let go of him--after all, that’s what he would have done, he thought, if someone in 2012 told him that Bucky wasn’t dead. Instead, the other Steve moved quickly, slamming him ruthlessly into the floor and digging his fingers into his neck.“You must be slipping, Loki,” he hissed. Steve winced. “Bucky Barnes died in 1944. He’s been dead for a very long time.”-2012 Steve has a few questions.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Stucky Bingo 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1830826
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53
Collections: Stucky Bingo 2020





	Infinite

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on Tumblr at plutosrose and on Twitter at @plutosrose1

“Bucky is alive!”

Steve hadn’t meant to say that, faced with his past self. But evenly matched and with time, critical time, slipping through his fingers like water, he was desperate for anything that might turn the tide.

He knew what 2012 was like--fresh out of the ice, hanging onto the modern world by the skin of his teeth, being thrust into a fight to save the world when he barely recognized the world anymore. 

He also knew about the trips to see Bucky’s sister Janey, who was in her eighties and still lived in Brooklyn. He knew about the ache that he felt, so horrible and ever-present that it felt like he was missing a limb. Visiting Bucky’s grave in Arlington Cemetery (no body recovered, Janey had said) hadn’t helped, seeing and touching the flag that the government had given the Barneses hadn’t helped, nor did visiting the exhibit in the Smithsonian.

1917-1944.

1917-1944.

He knew what it was like to think that Bucky had only twenty-seven years on this planet before he was called back to God. He knew what it was like to live without the burden of that terrible miracle. 

Even after he’d found Bucky in the future, the fact that Bucky was alive and had suffered for so many years had weighed him down. Bucky might have insisted more than once that it wasn’t his fault, that he’d gotten on the train in the Alps to capture Zola because he believed in the mission, and he wasn’t going to let Steve go alone, but that hadn’t stopped Steve from searching for every stray bit of information that he could find on the Winter Soldier program, pressing down on his guilt like a bruise.

Both Tony and Bruce had been pretty clear about not interfering in the past, but neither of them had said anything about what to do when your past self had you in a pretty brutal choke hold and wasn’t planning on letting go anytime soon. 

He had expected the other Steve to let go of him--after all, that’s what he would have done, he thought, if someone in 2012 told him that Bucky wasn’t dead. Instead, the other Steve moved quickly, slamming him ruthlessly into the floor and digging his fingers into his neck.

“You must be slipping, Loki,” he hissed. Steve winced. “Bucky Barnes died in 1944. He’s been dead for a very long time.”

Steve flailed uselessly as he tried to get out from under the other Steve. It had been one thing to be more or less equally matched by Bucky, but it was another to be equally matched by himself. It seemed like any escape method he tried was choked off before he was even able to attempt it.

“He’s alive,” Steve gasped, as the other Steve tightened his grip on his neck. “He’s alive. Zola experimented on him. He survived the fall. Hydra has had him since the 1940s.”

The other Steve had to remember what it was like to see Bucky at Azzano, strapped to an examination table and half-delirious. Afterward, Bucky was distant in a way that Steve couldn’t fully describe, and it had torn a place inside him that he hadn’t even known existed.

But he just sneered at him, and Steve had to wonder if he was carrying that same pain that he had--he had to be right? They were technically the same person, even if they were from two separate timelines. 

“What? So I’m just supposed to believe you?” The other Steve scoffed. “You’ll make up anything to have me let you go.”

“I’m not making it up! I’m you, from 2023,” Steve wheezed, fingers scrabbling for purchase and trying to do his best to push the other Steve off of him. “Bucky didn’t die. He got another version of the serum. You just don’t know about it yet. You’re not going to know about it until two years from now, when you see him on the beltway in Washington.” 

“Stop lying!” The other Steve snarled at him, and now, he was gripping him so tightly that Steve was legitimately wondering if he was about to pass out. 

“I’m not! You know we don’t lie!” Steve gasped wetly, which was the first time that the other Steve had started to loosen his grip slightly. “You know we would never lie, especially about Bucky.” 

The other Steve wasn’t letting go of him, but he could breathe a little easier--that was a start. Steve took as many deep breaths of air as he possibly could, just in case the other Steve was about to try to choke the life out of him a second time.

“Do you think that Loki would know that?” Steve said, which made the other Steve narrow his eyes at him. It was kind of a stupid thing to say in retrospect, considering the way that Loki had been able to pry Clint’s mind open with one of the stones and make him obey him.

But, despite this colossal misstep, the other Steve was still looking at him curiously, expectantly. “If Bucky is out there, how do I find him?” he asked, and for a moment, Steve couldn’t stop thinking about the man on the bridge who had tried to kill him with ruthless, cold-blooded efficiency, the man who, on the helicarrier, had been wide-eyed and absolutely fucking terrified when he told him that his name was James Buchanan Barnes.

“There are Hydra spies inside SHIELD,” Steve said, “Basically all of the STRIKE teams, for starters. Alexander Pierce, too. He’s Hydra.”

Surprisingly enough, the other Steve didn’t look the slightest bit surprised by this. He remembered meeting some of the STRIKE team members in passing after he’d woken up from the ice, and he had found their specific brand of Alpha male bullshit to be incredibly grating, to put it mildly.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admitted. “I didn’t find him so much as...he found me.” 

The other Steve didn’t look entirely happy with that answer, but at the same time, he also definitely wasn’t murdering him at the moment, so Steve counted that as a win.

“Maybe...” Steve ventured. “If you can get into SHIELD’s files, you can find more information. Natasha can help you. Oh, and Sam.”

“Who’s Sam?”

Oh right, they hadn’t met each other yet. “Uh, well, he’s sort of your new best friend.”

“Like Bucky?”

“I mean kind of, aside from the fact that you only have sex once.”

The other Steve nodded, coming up a little, so that most of his weight wasn’t resting on Steve anymore. Steve knew that this was his chance--his opening to pin the other Steve and move on and help with the quest to recover the rest of the stones, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel for this past version of himself, who had woken up in a world that had left him behind.

“What happened to him?” the other Steve asked, and Steve’s gut twisted, because he knew that the other him wasn’t ready to know the full extent of the truth. Bucky being alive was one thing, but Bucky having survived the fall and endured seven decades of torture was something else entirely.

“Let’s just say that it wasn’t anything good,” Steve said grimly, taking a deep breath. “The sooner that you find him, the better.”

He wasn’t sure what kind of ramifications that his words would have for the future, but in that moment, it really didn’t matter. Bucky didn’t deserve to be left behind for another moment if he could get away with it.

Or if the other Steve could get away with it, honestly time travel was extremely confusing. 

“Okay,” the other Steve said simply, “Okay. Considering the fact that you haven’t turned back into Loki, maybe you’re actually me. Why are you here?” 

Steve made a face. He wasn’t sure if past him would be able to understand what they were trying to do in turning back time--but even if he thought he would, there was no way that he was going to explain to him that in six years, he would lose Bucky again on a Wakandan battlefield and that it would feel permanent in a brand new way.

“It’s some...fate of the world stuff, you know?” Unfortunately he did know, he’d been thrust back into the whole saving the world business pretty quickly after waking up in the future, and he hadn’t gotten much of a break since then. 

“Yeah, I do,” the other Steve said. “If you’re me, though...where is Loki?”

“Few stories up. I think you have a few minutes before Bruce smashes him into the floor,” Steve said as the other Steve let him up. 

“Okay,” the other Steve nodded. “Good luck, Steve.”

Steve smiled, trying to focus back on finding the stones and defeating Thanos and not letting his mind wander back to Bucky and the other Steve’s quest to find him.

“Good luck, Steve,” he added, as he ran off.

**Author's Note:**

> Infinite  
> Creator(s): plutosrose  
> Card number: 012  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762334  
> Square filled: C5, Infinity Stones  
> Rating: T  
> Archive warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply  
> Major tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Not Avengers:Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Steve Rogers's Sadness Errands, Mention of Sam/Steve Hookup
> 
> Summary:
> 
> He had expected the other Steve to let go of him--after all, that’s what he would have done, he thought, if someone in 2012 told him that Bucky wasn’t dead. Instead, the other Steve moved quickly, slamming him ruthlessly into the floor and digging his fingers into his neck.
> 
> “You must be slipping, Loki,” he hissed. Steve winced. “Bucky Barnes died in 1944. He’s been dead for a very long time.”
> 
> -
> 
> 2012 Steve has a few questions.
> 
> Word count: 1,519


End file.
